Nikkei looks past China PMIs, gets new quarter off to strong start

TOKYO Oct 1 (Reuters) - Japanese stocks rose on Thursday,
taking comfort from surveys showing contractions in China's
manufacturing activity may have bottomed out and on pockets of
strength among Japanese firms despite the crunch felt by weak
external demand.

A day after closing out its worst quarter in more than 5
years, the Nikkei share average tracked gains on Wall Street
overnight and rallied 1.9 percent to close at 17,722.42.

Market players said the rise was driven in part by the
various pension funds that front-load buying at the start of the
second fiscal half.

Softbank gained 2.8 percent after it was announced
that the Japanese telecom giant had led a $1 billion investment
in U.S. financial technology startup SoFi, a company focused on
student loan refinancing.

Automakers outperformed as China's tax cut on small cars
took effect, halving the tax burden on cars with less than 1.6
liter engines from Oct 1 through the end of 2016.